


Bleed Red

by orphan_account



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Gen, Pre-Relationship, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 14:13:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1307758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night lies thick and cool over the forests, the wind rustling the leaves in tinny melodies one could only catch if one listened past the shuffle and the noise. Through the glassy panes of the window—not curved with the inviting roundness of the windows of her homeland but set in harsh angles of lines erect and rectangular forms, ninety degrees of precision—Lan Fan can faintly make out the horned moon, ghostly and pale tonight in her wisped dress of ominous clouds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bleed Red

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: "May Fan + your favourite quote from the lion king 2". You know, I literally don't care what caused someone to think of this, but I'm very, very glad it happened.
> 
> You know, I have about fourteen or fifteen may fan prompts at the moment and literally all of them are insane AUs or crossovers. While I like the AUs and crossovers, I also wouldn't mind some good old-fashioned canonical prompts. Just sayin'. Hint hint. Nudge nudge. Wink wink. Etc. etc.
> 
> Takes place in my Phoenix storyline, if you're familiar with that (which I need to post on AO3 hurky-durk).
> 
> Takes place after Lan Fan and May both arrive at Dr Knox's forest getaway.
> 
> Unbeta'd/unedited/etc. Enjoy!

The night lies thick and cool over the forests, the wind rustling the leaves in tinny melodies one could only catch if one listened past the shuffle and the noise. Through the glassy panes of the window—not curved with the inviting roundness of the windows of her homeland but set in harsh angles of lines erect and rectangular forms, ninety degrees of precision—Lan Fan can faintly make out the horned moon, ghostly and pale tonight in her wisped dress of ominous clouds.

The muscles of her left shoulder twinge as she shifts beneath the blanket, as she nears the window and the wild and the wind, the night wind that promises freedom beneath her spreading wings.

The sheets border on suffocatingly warm. She peels the tops back and _hrm_ s when the fabric on her dominant side drags, strains, resists. Then—

“Of course,” she whispers to herself, privately rejoicing in the tones of her native tongue. They loll softly in the well at the bottom of her mind. Slice through the cacophony of Amestris like her months in this forsaken nation had never been. With a need to hear the lilt of her homeland over again, she says, stupidly, “My arm,” as if those short, clipped syllables could wring out the pain of forgetting in the half-asleep midnight daze that she has given up her future in exchange for the assurance of the young lord’s safety.

She doesn’t regret the decision—the Yao, and all of Xing, _need_ him—but somehow the agony remains coiled in the stump.

Once more she struggles towards the window. Pain in her thigh brings her flesh hand to swat down; a second later another hand intercepts her wrist. The dratted Chang girl naturally took the spot directly beneath the window. “I know I promised the doctor that I wouldn’t hurt you, but if you’re _touch_ Xiao Mei I’m gonna break your nose,” she whispers _with_ fierce conviction for a girl maybe a metre and a half tall. The Chang girl pauses; Lan Fan narrows her eyes carefully. “I guess I’d fix it with alkahestry afterwards. Just so the doctor isn’t mad at me.”

“Chang.”

The Chang girl wrinkles her nose in distaste. Lan Fan bites her tongue to keep her thoughts— _and do I smell so terribly to you? I knew a Clan as worthless as the Chang would have no nose_ —to herself. “ _Yao_.”

She swallows her pride and it goes down her throat bitter and dry and abrasive on the way to the pit of her stomach. If she can give up her arm for Xing, she can certainly give up a scrap of her arrogance for a view of the night. “Would you move over?”

“I’m pressed against the wall as is.” The Chang girl has a full half-metre of space. Perhaps Lan Fan’s skepticism crawls over her features, because with a heaving sigh as of a mortal undertaking a task from a god, the Chang girl tucks her stunted panda into her sleeve and moves. Lan Fan slides after her, presses her body against the Chang girl’s side. Their hips touch with a measure of discomfort, but the moonlight spills over Lan Fan’s vision and the silver comforts her. There _does_ exist a world after the sun dips below the horizon. “Is that better for the Phoenix of Xing?”

“This one is merely a retainer of Prince Yao,” Lan Fan snaps curtly, cheeks reddening at the epithet. If the Chang girl were any so and so in the wild, Lan Fan would leave her bloody and crying on the side of the road, barely conscious, and Lan Fan says so.

Somehow at that, the whole of the Chang girl’s demeanor changes; Lan Fan can’t quite describe the shift, but the girl’s eyes brighten and her mouth coils into something not entirely a smile but not entirely a frown. “Is your arm all right?”

“Fine. It’s almost like no one can ask me any question but.”

“Mm. I’m sorry.” The Chang girl runs her fingers through her hair, frizzled around her face with her braids undone. “Do you want me to scoot over further?”

Lan Fan blinks. “. . . would you?”

“Mm,” the Chang girl says, again, and moves. When Lan Fan pauses at the distance between them, the Chang girl tugs on the wrist she hadn’t let go of. “Don’t you want to be closer to the window? C’mon.” This time their hips touch with a measure not of _perfect_ comfort, but of sense somewhere near. The girls lie in the silence, in the coolness of the wind through the window and the warmth of one another, and Lan Fan wonders—

What _does_ make the Chang so different?

Because as far as she can tell, she thinks: _They_ are _us._


End file.
